Hear
by Stardust16
Summary: 'What good is a human, is he? It's a major part of life, but somehow it's not a part of him.' AU character study. Edited and beta-read by SenseiGrace. Rated T for mental health issues and mentioned panic attacks.


***sighs* I can't believe I'm posting another story like this...**

 **Last year (meaning September 2017), I posted a similar story to this one in the _Girl Meets World_ fandom. I was really struggling back in May last year, up until September, and I thought I was doing fine, until I kind of relapsed over winter break in December.**

 **Anxiety attacks have never been a common thing for me. Back in November 2016, though, they started becoming more frequent. I'm not going to tell me entire story, because I'm sure you guys don't want to hear that (I honestly don't blame you), but I am going to tell you that I am still struggling with mental health issues, so, if you have something rude you'd like to say about this short little story I typed up; don't.**

 **Im not really sure what to think of this, though, so it's kind of like a test run, I guess, if you'd like to call it that. If people like it then, awesome, I'm glad; but, if they don't, I'm going to take it down.**

 **Until then, enjoy.**

 **(Note: I'm pretty sure you can tell who the main character is in this, but I left it unclear for his best friend. Some people like the old movies, and some people like the newer one (like I do), but what you choose is up to you.)**

* * *

Sometimes, he wonders what it's like to hear.

'What is it like?' He thinks, as he sits in his bedroom, alone at night. Their family is already asleep, and they don't know what is happening, but he also doesn't know what the world is like beyond silent.

He can hear little things, he supposes. He can read lips, he can read emotions, he can read expressions. But, reading isn't hearing, and he learned that the hard way.

He's a superhero too, so that adds to his troubles. Not that it is a trouble, really, because he loves helping, loves saving people. But, what he doesn't love, is not being able to expect the unexpected.

His super senses, he guesses, helps. But, they don't really do all that much, besides alert him a threat is near. They don't—They don't do anything, he doesn't do anything and, in a way, he can't do anything.

What good is a human, is he, if he can't hear? Hearing is a major part of life, but somehow it's not a part of him.

It's frustrating to say the least. And he can't wear hearing aids either because, if he does, they'll catastrophically collide, or mix, or whatever you want to call it, with his super senses, his super hearing, and everything will sound like somebody's screaming murder.

Everything, is too loud.

Everything is too much, and yet it's also not enough.

Sometimes, he wonders what the point is. What is he doing, why he's even here in the first place? What's the point of saving someone, or trying to be a hero, if you can't even do it correctly?

Decathlon is hard. Classes are hard. He can't do anything right, somehow he always messes up, whether it be something he can't help or he can.

Saving people, he thinks, is hard too. His best friend, whatever you want to name or call him, likes to think otherwise. He's his "Guy in the Chair," he says, he can do the hearing for him. But there's no point in that because if he can't even hear what the teacher is saying in class, then how is he supposed to hear muggers, or murderers, stabbing him in the back?

It doesn't help when he's forced to sit out in class or miss school, either, due to his injuries, the ones he gets from "being out in the city" or from "bullies". He has to research the instructions for everything online; math formulas, science equations, socials worksheets, you name it, there was a website for it.

But, he didn't always like websites. Sometimes, he liked learning. Sometimes, he liked sitting in class, sitting with other people and his peers, just watching, and waiting, until the bell rings. Sometimes, it's the little things, that give him pleasure, rather than not being able to do any of them (He saw how happy the other kids were in PE, sometimes, when they had to sit out of dodgeball because of a sprained ankle or broken wrist. He saw how happy they were, but that didn't mean he felt that way too.).

Mind you, he couldn't feel—sorry, hear—anything, either.

But that didn't mean he didn't want to.

People, he knows, try to understand. They try to sympathize with him, but it doesn't always work. They don't understand, and he knows that they never will until they go through it themselves. It's like… mental health issues, to put it lightly. Anxiety, as an example. Having panic attacks in the hallways, leaving class at intermittent intervals to "go to the washroom" or "going to get a drink of water," when, really, he's struggling to hold it together.

His family, his little tiny family consisting of three people with the exception of himself, knows what he's going through, too. Last year, someone close to him almost got shot and died in front of his eyes. That's, when the nightmares started.

He remembers screaming (actually, that's a lie, because he can't actually hear himself scream, but assumes it's true, because that's what his family told him), panicking, crying. Tears flowing from his eyes, streaking his freckled cheeks, as he tried to rid himself from the dark world of daydreams all on his own. Terrors, he knows, clouded his mind then, and they still do today. They haven't stopped. In fact, all they've really been doing is getting worse. Closing him off from those he holds close. Stopped him from sleeping so much that he fainted the other day in English.

That's something else that's troubling him, too. He can't sleep. He knows it's a simple understatement, but he doesn't know any other way to explain it. He wakes up at two in the morning, and can't go back to sleep until five minutes before seven, when his alarm starts screaming in his ear.

Sometimes, to put it lightly, he wishes it'd stop. He wishes everything would—the world around him, the nightmares, the fact that he pushes people away when he wants to do the opposite. He wishes it'd all stop, yet he doesn't exactly know how to. He doesn't exactly know to do a lot of things, though, given his age, but this—this, he doesn't know how to fix.

How, is he supposed to fix it?

* * *

 **So... yeah. I kind of used a loss of hearing as a metaphor, I guess, and tied it in to compare it with mental health issues. Originally I wasn't going to write this at all, but I saw a post on social media and it spoke to me, so... this was created.**

 **Honestly, I've been trying to type something like this up for a while, for another story, but... I can't force it, you know? I can't really force myself to feel sad, can't force myself to have anxiety or panic attacks (hahaha, I had about three this week... Yeah, those weren't fun times), it just comes naturally.**

 **Hopefully you guys liked this, though. It's a bit darker than I planned, but please let me know if you did. Reviews, little comments of appreciation, cheer me up and I've been feeling really down lately, if I'm being honest with all of you.**

 **Until next time!**

 **~Star**

 **(By the way, thanks to SenseiGrace for editing.)**


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